Take a stroll with On Looking to see what you’re missing

Horowitz`s premise is that most of us sleep-walk our way through life, missing the majority of what unfolds around us under the guise of the concentration we require to complete daily tasks. The subsequent chapters of her book serve to prove her point: by being so focused, we “miss the possibility of being surprised by what is hidden in plain sight right in front of us.”

She begins by describing a solo walk around her Manhattan block. It is only after walking with the 11 experts she corrals into her experiment that Horowitz concluded that she missed “pretty much everything” on that first ramble. Walking with her 19-month-old son, Ogden, teaches Horowitz to explore the block`s surfaces and textures, with finger, toe, and tongue. Their walk introduces her to shadows, green, bubbly triangles and many examples of the letter ‘O’. Ogden`s wonder and excitement at all things new is infectious.

Walking with geologist Sidney Horenstein awakens Horowitz to both the topography and the built landscape of New York City; the granite, bluestone and limestone in buildings and retaining walls, even the fossilized remnants of sea creatures trapped in that limestone. Typographer Paul Shaw, by contrast, teaches Horowitz about the city`s history by identifying letters and singling out fonts. Artist Maira Kalman shows Horowitz that walking in the city is fundamentally a social activity, presenting opportunities to engage with other people.

Naturalist Charley Eiseman introduces Horowitz the world of insects and their sign, during a leaf-flipping journey that uncovers everything from egg cases to exoskeletons and earthworm droppings. From wildlife scientist John Hadidian, Horowitz learns the secret places in any city where dwell raccoons and rodents, and spies the animal corridor and rat superhighways they traverse.

All of Horowitz`s guests on her walks have novel information to offer. I found the observations Dr. Bennett Lorber made during Horowitz`s walk in Philadelphia with the infectious disease specialist particularly engaging, as Lorber diagnosed medical conditions from people`s gaits and appearance. I was also captivated by the smell-scape that Horowitz`s walk with her dog Finnegan uncovered. The stroll harkened back to Horowitz`s 2009 best-seller, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know.

Horowitz chose an interesting cast of companions for her walks, and she easily proves her point about how much we normally miss unless we choose to widen our perception. Her deft grasp of the science behind what or how she is observing and her impressive vocabulary (look up fusiform face area, omphalos and picklesome, I dare you) makes reading this book an education in itself. Her footnotes are often wry and enlightening, if somewhat distracting, and she has an impressive ability to condense and present information concisely.

Horowitz`s purpose in writing is to awaken us to our surroundings and to inspire in us the same “`sense of wonder that I, that we all, have a predisposition to but have forgotten to enjoy.” She succeeded in bolstering my resolve to try consciously to open my senses to what I have previously taken for granted. But I was not as inspired as I had hoped to be by reading On Looking, in part because it reads like a very smart person imparting a lot of knowlege, but without the emotional connection I was seeking to accompany the information.

Laura Eggertson is an Ottawa-based journalist and writer often accompanied by canine companions on her walks.

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